One of the announcements at Convergence was the availability of Audit Trails, a new add-on module that helps with Sarbanes Oxley compliance by creating audit trails of selected tables in your Dynamics GP database. Audit Trails was originally written by Merit Solutions, and was OEMed by Microsoft along with Merit's Electronic Signatures product.

Installation

My first test of any add-on to Dynamics GP is to try to install it ad get it working without reading the instructions. Audit Trails failed at this, mainly because of it's non-conformance to the established Dynamics GP user interface guidelines. It also didn't automatically prompt me to create tables when I logged in, so I had to find the install screen before I could use the product. But this issue will probably go away when it becomes part of the main install.

What does it do?

Audit Trails lets you select a list of tables that will be audited. Every time a new record is added, or an existing record is updated or deleted, it creates a backup of the record in a separate database, along with the user id, and the date and time that the record was updated. There is a user interface similar to SmartList that lets you run queries on the audited tables and compare the differences between records.

What doesn't it do?

The first and biggest problem with Audit Trails is that is doesn't let you audit the system (DYNAMICS) database. This database holds the setup information that spans across all of you company databases, which is really the sort of stuff that you should…

In prepping for a presentation to a local CPA audit team, I’ve compiled some useful summary information becoming even more important in this economy.

Most powerful, least used—Audit Trails, the moduleCaptures change history with a time, date and user ID stamp on each event. Before-change and after-change data values. Query, reporting, and export to Excel capabilities. “Closed system,” i.e., the audit information is retained in a database separate from DYNAMICS and company databases. A la carte module available to users holding Professional and BRL Advanced Management licenses.